To the Galvin Design Team;
I was quite impressed with the interactive forms and the usability features that were portrayed today. Usability plus a great design will always make the user experience favorable. Keep pushing yourselves to define the usability requirements and then designing a great experience around that. I look forward to seeing this high profile website go live.
Shoutout to the Galvin Design Team
This is Our Time to Shine
Last night I finally had a chance to catch CNBC’s “Boomer’s” produced by Tom Brokaw (and starring my cousin Diane Dietz) and I was impressed with the diverse lives of the Baby Boomer generation. Throughout the documentary Brokaw reported on the events, struggles and accomplishments of the Baby Boomer generation. I was impressed that when faced with the war during the 1960’s and touch economic times in the 1970’s it was the Baby Boomers who buckled up and turned the nation around.
As someone who is a product of Generation X I understand that we are next in line to start taking care of our communities and our nation. This is our time to shine. I hope and pray that we elect the right officials, make conservative financial decisions, grow our businesses, properly educate our children and build success for the next generations to come. Each of us can make an impact.
Galvin is Releasing a New Content Management System
You may have worked with a Content Management System if you are a web designer, developer or maintain a pre-developed company site. And if you do not fall into one of these categories and own a Facebook page then you have worked with a CMS at its simplest form.
A CMS allows people to maintain and edit the content and functionality of their websites easily and efficiently. Many companies do not have an in-house web team and a Content Management System gives them the ability to maintain the site without any previous HTML knowledge. Galvin is releasing a new Content Management System that gives clients a point of access to update news, projects and basic information so that their site will always be evolving and up-to-date. This evolution of content can stem from a basic one-page CMS to a very elaborate module based admin where specific functionality is essential. No-matter what the scale of CMS we can taylor each one to specific needs and goals of the client.
We decided to develop our own Content Management System because of the lack of features of many of the pre-built systems. We can also offer more specific functionality, no-matter how detailed, if a client so requires. These “business rules” create a customized system for each client. If there were any issues with the system, clients are able to get faster customer service with our support team because we built the system from the ground-up.
Our content management system also integrates well with third-party proprietary databases like NetSuite or Salesforce. This allows us to create a complete custom business solution. Our CMS was created with a high quality user-centered interface and a rigorously pre-tested back-end that together make it a very intuitive and solid system. When a client decides that a CMS is what they need it is their’s to keep. Our clients own the CMS, and no matter what changes take place at Galvin they will always be able to update the site.
There are many Content Management Systems on the market but we are able to give our clients a cost effective, intuitive and solid system that we can taylor to any project’s requirements and goals.
Comfort of Popularity vs. Usability: Bucking the Trend
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
What would happen if, out of nowhere, a company came out with a better MP3 player than Apple? Better storage, more functions, etc. for a better price? Well, it’s happened. Multiple times. Some competing MP3 players offer all of these superiorities, but have failed to achieve the prestige of the Apple iPod due to its seemingly ever-increasing popularity. There are multiple reasons why the iPod has managed to own the competition, including – but not limited to – visual appeal of the product and the huge advantage that Apple has developed in advertising. Even if a product comes out on the market that is proven to be superior to the iPod, there’s a good chance it won’t surpass Apple’s stronghold on the mind of consumers as a whole.
A parallel can be drawn to the existence of a keyboard you might not be familiar with. The modern keyboard layout was created before computers even existed so as to prevent typewriters jamming. While the “QWERTY” layout (the most common modern keyboard) did indeed solve this relative annoyance, there was a concern about the fact that there existed only one vowel on the home row, a feature that still exists today. While effective in its purpose, the need for the layout of QWERTY was rendered moot by computers, machines that don’t have to be concerned with jamming in the same manner of typewriters. However, consumers had gotten extremely comfortable using the QWERTY, and it was perhaps inevitable that electronic keyboards would have the same character layout. Even today, the vast majority of the computer-using population uses a very slight variation of the original QWERTY. Look down at your hands, and there’s an exceedingly good chance that on the home row (middle row of letters), you will find exactly one vowel: “A.” One row up the first six letters will probably be Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The remnant of the typewriter-dominant past still exists.
Despite the fact that QWERTY prevented mechanical jamming on typewriters, there were concerns about the layout of the letters and the strain that was placed on hands during the action of typing. A different keyboard was created in the 1930s – the “DVORAK” – according to what letters were utilized most often and the way that people physically type; the most common characters are more accessible in DVORAK, and the lesser used are placed in more remote areas of the board. A, O, E, U and I are all on the home row, for example. Everything about the DVORAK points to superiority over the QWERTY. But, although the DVORAK is easier to get a hold of now than it was thirty years ago, the QWERTY still has the market by the throat. Yes, it would take you a bit of time to get used to the DVORAK, but carpel tunnel would be much less of a concern for you than it is now. Your efficiency would more than likely see a noticeable increase. But the QWERTY is what we are, as a whole, most comfortable with. The QWERTY, like the iPod, is what we use despite evidence that we should move on to the DVORAK, the usability pioneer in the keyboard world.
We at Galvin Technologies like to think of ourselves as the DVORAK of website usability. It’d be easy for us to go the same route as everybody else and design websites according to the QWERTY layout the industry has provided us, but we choose to take a step or two out of the box. We don’t want to completely buck the trend, and do pay close attention to the requirements of business models, but try to take into effect usability aspects: the QWERTY vs. the DVORAK. Just as the DVORAK was created with the user in mind, we design websites with the users in mind. The QWERTY was useful when it was necessary, but it’s time to move on; sometimes it’s better to come up with something new and a little different, more user-friendly, than continue to follow a trend of blatant usability inferiority.
Functional Requirements and Use Cases: Avoiding Accidents and Mix-ups in System Engineering
Ok. You have decided to make a monumental decision: you are going to hire an architectural company to build a new house for you. After months and months and what has to equal hundreds of thousands of dollars, you drive to your new home, walk in and…realize things aren’t quite right. You flip the switch for the garbage disposal and the upstairs toilet flushes. When the dryer runs, the air temperature drops thirty degrees. This is not what you had in mind. You have wasted lots of time and lots of money on a product that, in the end, was nowhere near what you wanted.
This is a legitimate concern in the software engineering and development world as well as any other type of construction. It’s easy to just build a house or just design a car if a customer asks you to, but there is so much room for error and disappointment, cost in both time and money, that we choose a little more intimate of a route. Not only do we develop websites for our clients, but we also develop business systems. To do this in at our most efficient level, we go over the functional requirements of the system with the client and follow that up with use cases.
Some sites can be basic, flat html pages, where the user can visit multiple pages via links and learn about the company, the products the company sells, and navigate pages without really doing anything other than that navigation. For example, a florist shop – let’s call it Fiona’s Flowers, based out of Tampa – has a website with a few pages that give the company’s bio, some contact information, some pictures and a list of various plants and boutiques one can purchase at the shop. All in all, it’s not much more than an online Power Point presentation that the user navigates. One can’t buy anything online, nor can one compare prices to other companies when Fiona boasts that her prices are the best in the area.
Now let’s backtrack and say Fiona hasn’t had this business designed yet, much less a website, but she knows what she wants there. She comes to us and says, “Hey, I’m going to be building a floral company. I have nothing except my idea and how I want it to work.” It is then our job to define the functional requirements – what Fiona’s system has to do – for the business system and the company. She has to have customer’s able to purchase online, has to have a shipping service and options for shipping, has to be able to compare prices for each and every plant she sells with the competitive market, etc. We end up with a laundry list of the client’s desired functions for their system because we want to design a complete system for you. Software engineering is, in essence, no different than engineering a car; what are the pieces and parts I have to build to make all this happen?
We’ve listed what the customer wants and documented what this product should do, and now we have a laundry list for system purposes – the functional requirements. Once we have that, we lay it all out into modules, creating a model for everything from application to the storage database. After looking at this list and modules, each building block in the application model, we start creating use cases.
Let’s look at an insurance company, for example. One objective for a use case, the process associated with it, might be creating a quote and saving it to the database for future viewing. The functional requirements are the ability to print the quote, generate a pdf file for emailing, etc. A use case for this quote creation would documents the flow of a user’s steps to creating a quote, from interface appearance, generating a quote number, attributes of the policies available and coverage, and so on and so forth. The use case basically walks through the steps of how a user uses the web page of the insurance company and its components.
Also documented are the specific business rules applied. The customer enters information on the screen and clicks “save.” The next step would be applying a business rule according to what is laid out in the use case – what has to happen. A quote number needs to be created. What numbers are generated? How are they generated? These are business rules that have to be applied to meet the functional requirements discussed earlier. What happens if the driver’s license isn’t validated or wrong information is entered? What happens if a license number has expired? These are logical business outcomes that need to be very clearly laid out. If a user wants to take a policy on Dodge Viper and the business isn’t willing or able to take on that car value, what is the process that needs to occur that sends a message of refusal? The response is documented in the use case.
We fully disclose to the client what we are going to develop before rather than during the building process, which makes construction both cost effective and easier to understand for everyone.
Use cases are important because it forces both our client and us to agree on everything that is going to happen. We get sign off on everything before we sit down and design the product. We fully disclose to the client what we are going to develop before rather than during the building process, which makes construction both cost effective and easier to understand for everyone. It’s not only a system for agreement, but it gives the developer, who doesn’t make much contact with the client until the use case is developed, a very specific idea of what they’re going to be building and how to go about doing it. As the blocks agreed upon in the functional requirements are built, what we had previously discussed and agreed upon is enforced.
So, back to the house example from the very beginning. If we built houses, we would sit down with you and discuss – and agree upon – the functions for everything in the house. This switch will turn on the garbage disposal, this will turn up the heat, and this will lock the door. There’s no room for confusion or the possibility of a devastating mistake either on your expectations or our construction. The whole purpose is to get confirmation that what we’re developing is in essence what you need before the product is created. It saves you money. It makes us efficient. And it makes the products stronger, better, and faster.
Google Buzz
New Google Buzz brings Twitter, Facebook and Google Latitude together in one web app. A simpler take on Google’s Wave application, but works with all of your contacts. Maybe a new way to connect with clients, co-workers, family and friends? You can decide to share with one person or everyone. Check it out:
For more information on what Google Buzz offers and when it will be available from your g-mail account go here.
How My Dyson Vacuum is Like a Web Project
Yesterday afternoon was a day to get our house in order. After a busy weekend with home projects, playing with the kids and dog the house needs a good cleaning. My wife and I split up the chores and yesterday I had to vacuum the house. Quite honestly, I enjoy vacuuming the house and the reason is I can see the results of how much dirt and dog hair the vacuum picks up.
As I was vacuuming the house I began to immediately think that the reasons why everyone likes a Dyson vacuum are that it truly does a great job and that you can see the results. Instead of a vacuum bag the Dyson has a plastic container that you can see through and see all the dirt you pick up. So as I was vacuuming the house I began to think about how successful Dyson is and their positive word of mouth. I then began to relate that to our industry and as well as to Galvin. In theory a vacuum can just be a commodity – you can buy them anywhere and price is a decision factor. But Dyson showcases that they are not a commodity but rather a high end vacuum that will pick up much more dirt and vacuum then any other vacuum. Then they show the results by showing you the dirt that you picked up.
“A professional service company becomes a commodity when the skill set, ideas and solutions cannot be valued or visualized. As a result, the only part a prospect can see is the price and then bases their decision on that alone.”
This relates to the web and software industry because our industry could be considered a commodity. Over the years I have learned that you can get your web or software project done by anyone within our area. “If all you want is a vacuum then go spend $19.99 at Wal-Mart” is just like saying “if all you want is a website then you need to shop around because there are a lot of freelancers who will do it for much cheaper”. A professional service company becomes a commodity when the skill set, ideas and solutions cannot be valued or visualized. As a result, the only part a prospect can see is the price and then bases their decision on that alone.
Talk is cheap. For Galvin Creative Technologies to proclaim great service and great delivery we have to back that up with showing the results. The Dyson shows you the dirt you just collected and we show you the results by accurate budgeting and forecasting, approved use cases, constant communication, updated project plans, updated work break down structures, weekly status reports, an issue log and then the end product. With a vacuum that uses a vacuum bag to collect dirt you can only assume and hope the vacuum is working and with a web project if you are not getting weekly communications and updated documents you can only assume the project is being done properly.
Estimating Website Projects
Oftentimes we are invited into an opportunity after the prospect has already reviewed several proposals. I see them scratching their head and asking why the prices they currently have from other web providers are so different in range or they tell me they do now know what they will be getting. In a sales cycle this is an issue but I won’t cover that now. But the issue I want to cover is the lack of understanding the clients requirements and the level of effort (billable hours) it takes to complete that work.
Here are few points I want to share to ease this pain.
Wall Street Journal’s Web Watch
I wanted to share with you Wall Street Journal’s Web Watch by Laura Lorber.
- OneBiz.com
- Zapproved.com
- Outright.com
- Angelsoft.com
- OnStartups.com
- The Entrepreneurial Mind by DrJeffCornwall.com
- Startable.com
- TheFunded.com
Leadership is an Art
A friend of mine mailed me a copy of “Leadership is an Art”, by Max De Pree. It is a short read but very inspirational and informative. I got through the first couple chapters and I feel compelled to list some of the points I find important. This list is only from the first couple chapters. As I read on I will try to share more with you.
Technology is an Accelerator: Be a Pioneer and Not a Follower
A friend of mine sent me the Executive Book Summary of Jim Collins book “Good to Great”. One area of the summary discusses “technology is an accelerator”. Collins explains that “good-to-great companies do not jump on technological bandwagons or chase after fads. They determine what technology makes the most sense for them, then pioneer its application.”
Tight rolled pants was a fad we all followed.
Define Your Requirements
When making a technology decision you must first determine your business requirements. When we engage into an application development project our first group of deliverables consists of a functional requirements document. This document outlines the functional requirements necessary to the business processes. When this is done first then it makes decisions and budgets much more accurate and profitable. But typically we see companies following “fads and bandwagons” of new and popular technology. They use these technology fads because their competition is or they were sold incorrectly. As a result poor decisions result in lost profits. But when you instead become a pioneer in the application you are accelerating your momentum for for success. You are defining the requirements and the direction for your business.
Don’t Overreact to New Technology
Collins states that “leaders of good-to-great companies respond with thoughtfulness and creativity, driven by a compulsion to turn unrealized potential into results. They do not take reactionary measures, defining strategy in response to what others are doing. They act in terms of what they want to create, and how to improve their companies, relative to an absolute standard of excellence“. Don’t let the technology fads overwhelm you. Instead, know the direction of your business and the technology can be created to enhance that. A client of ours shopped for ERP software packages to run their business. Because of the complexity of their business and because they were first to market with a product they determined to custom build the application based on their specific business requirements. As a result, not only are they a leader in the market because of their product but their competitive advantage has become their application and how their business runs on it. Now, their competition is coming to them requesting their software to be implemented into their business. They have become the pioneer and leader because they did not follow a fad or jump on certain bandwagons. They are growing because they know the direction their business needs to take and they have defined the application to support it.
Why Are You Joining the Social Media Fad?
In another document supplied to me called “How Clients Buy” published by RainToday.com it indicates that social media/online communities are near the bottom of the list of what influences companies to buy professional services. I agree and disagree with this statement. I disagree with it because social media/online communities help create popularity which generates brand awareness and familiarity, which happens to be the most popular way clients buy professional services. So social media/online communities can help get your foot in the door but it can’t close the deal which why I agree with the statement. Don’t hide behind social media/online communities. Not all of your buyers on there or even worse the wrong buyers are there. 
Have a specific strategy with measurables. We use SalesForce to measure all of our activity, including that on social media sites. So I know exactly how profitable our business is from online activity as well as how much time we should be spending in those communities or what online social activity I need to improve.
Better Content for a Better Experience
Motion Type video for 51st Annual Grammy Awards ad campaign.
Following up on Gary’s post about the rigorous processes we go through in the course of a project and how project management is so important to this process, I wanted to touch on the subject of content and how important it is to design.
Content comes in many forms in the context of interface design. It gives users a sense of what the site is about through navigation, provides direction in the form of buttons, confirms actions inside interactive forms and can be seen as imagery together with main body copy. All of these forms of content are used to strengthen the overall user experience and give the site meaning and validity.
So why is content important to design?
In the beginning of a project, content is considered to construct site-maps and put together functional diagrams. After that there can be a disconnect of what specific ideas and information the site needs to convey. Content can get pushed to the end of a project because the client wants to focus on the structure and overall project plan. This can eventually bring the project to a standstill. Designers need content at the beginning of the project because we use it to plan the way users interact with the site (wireframes), to create a consistent and useable hierarchy and most importantly, to make sure the information that will accomplish the client’s goals is presented in the best way possible.
Solutions
So what are some things we can do to insure that content is given the attention it deserves? First of all, it is the job of the designer to educate the client and the project manager of the importance that content plays in the overall objective of the site. More specifically, we as a team can plan out the process in the early stages of the project so it has the best chance for success.
1. Initial Discussion
Before the wireframes are created, there should be a discussion over the content of the site that involves the client, copy writer, the designer and project manager. Ideally, this discussion should be in three parts:
a ) What content do we have and what are we using or throwing out?
b ) What are the new goals and what is the main message for the website?
c ) What imagery, charts or specific functionality do we need to help convey the new goals and new message?
2. Outline of Content for All Pages
A content outline of each page of the website should be created not only to keep track of what content is on-hand and what is still needed, but also so that all parties know what to expect when the website is developed. This insures smaller more-specific goals are met.
3. Internal Collaboration
A discussion should take place with project managers, developers and designers over what will be presented to the client in the initial comps. What content can be used in the initial design comps to convey the meaning and functionality of each element? This communication will give designers the knowledge to best design for usability and in-turn will insure developers implement the interface correctly.
4. Content & Design Audit
After the design is implemented and content has been developed, an audit should be done for all pages of the site. This audit involves making sure the design is supporting the content and that the content is fresh and easily navigated. Is this page conveying what we intended? Do we need a different call-out to bring importance to a certain event? Is the homepage talking to the intended audience, and do we need a call-to-action? These are all questions that need to be answered before a site is launched.
Conclusion
Content is a key ingredient to building a successful website. It is important to the validity of the site as well as the usability and success of its design. Therefore, it should be addressed in the beginning of the design phase. Creating good content requires collaboration throughout the project with the client and development teams to insure all expectations are met and goals are reached.
Proper Project Management in Web and Software Development
This morning I ran into a couple friends at a networking event and we got into a conversation about the importance of project management processes in a web and software development project. The best comment I heard from the conversation was “…it’s not so much the end product as it is the means of getting there.” On my way back to the office it got me thinking about our processes and the advantage we have in the web and software development market.
We are well aware that our industry is fragmented. There are many web and software development companies within the Indianapolis area. We can all do great designs, solid infrastructures and proper coding but we honestly feel that at Galvin Creative Technologies we can set ourselves apart with our project management processes. We truly think of ourselves as more of a professional services company opposed to just a web and software development company. We value the relationship, the budget and the timeline of the web or software project.
Two weeks ago I was visiting a client and I stopped by one of our contacts office and asked him how things are coming along with the project. His comment was music to my ears. He said “you guys should write a book on your processes.” He was thrilled with the amount of detail that was involved. He went on to say that he knows exactly where we are with budget, timeline and tasks. Then just last week we helped the Secretary of State’s office develop and launch their Rethinking Redistricting website. What should have been a two month project got done in two in a half weeks and came in well under budget. It was a project that came to us quickly with a very tight deadline and a strict budget. Our project managers put together a two week timeline, while not shortcutting any of our processes, then accurately defined the requirements, then developed it and we nailed it.
In our six years of business I specifically look back at how we have grown over the past two years and what we have learned. We experienced the pain of not managing a project correctly and we have experienced the pain of not allocating our resources. But before things got out of hand we knew exactly where we had to improve and began to invest in our processes, business analysis and project management. Now, our projects are on time and within budget. Tom Schaetzle, our VP of Professional Services, has implemented very rigid project disciplines for Galvin Creative Technologies and the projects we develop.
Stay Professional with Text Messaging in Business
I just read an article from Marketing Profs on “Cures for Eight Common Small-Marketing-Firm Ailments”
Rule #6 was “Don’t include text-message abbreviations, typos, poor grammar, and other mistakes in written communications” and it got me thinking about how powerful text messaging has become in the business community. I’m not exactly enjoying it but it seems to be something I have to adapt to. Looking back over the past year I have been able to setup appointments and even close deals via text messaging and now I am beginning to hear clients say “just text me that”.
Text messaging is becoming a necessity in business just like email is but when I read the advice about watching the poor grammar or avoiding abbreviations I could not agree more. In professional emails I am beginning to see “r” instead of “are”, “u” instead of “you” or “L8R” instead of “Sincerely”. As a society I love the fact that we can communicate quickly but stay professional and polite. Don’t treat the business community like a few friends planning a Saturday night.
The Seed
A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.
He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you.”The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. “I am going to give each one of you a SEED today – one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you.
I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO.”
One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story.. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown.. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.
Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.
Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure. Six months went by — still nothing in Jim’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn’t say anything to his colleagues, however… He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil – He so wanted the seed to grow.
A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot.
But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right.
He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful — in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!
When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives. Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO.
“Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!”
All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front.
Jim was terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!” When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed – Jim told him the story.
The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, “Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!
His name is Jim!” Jim couldn’t believe it. Jim couldn’t even grow his seed..
“How could he be the new CEO?” the others said.
Then the CEO said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead – it was not possible for them to grow.
All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!”
* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends
* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness
* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective
* If you plant hard work, you will reap success
* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation
* If you plant faith in God, you will reap a harvest
So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later…
“Whatever You Give To Life, Life Will Give Back To You” “Whatsoever a man seweth; that he shall also reap.”
The Importance of Wireframes
I read an article the other day about how important the wire-framing stage is to web development. It was really good timing because we are currently in this phase with one of our projects. This particular client is simply interested in seeing complete design compositions, skipping the wire-framing stage alltogether. So, I thought it would be very beneficial to discuss this phase more in-depth.
Paul Boag writes about the benefits of hand-drawn wireframes in The 7 Wonders of Wireframes and that many can be done in a small amount of time. More importantly, I think, he identifies the key reasons of why this stage is so successful:
1. Improves Team Work
Wire-framing brings together all members of the team. These discussions help manage roles, responsibilities and scope.
2. Better Communication
This stage not only improves team work but it also makes the subsequent steps in the project run much smoother by bringing developers and designers together early on in the project.
3. Engages Our Clients
By including our clients in the wire-framing step we can educate them on all aspects of web development; from key terms to technologies utilized. This also increases the chance of meeting client expectations and goals early on in the project.
4. More Choices
Because wireframes are easy and fast to produce we can show more options at this phase and inevitably have the best result at the design phase.
5. A Testing Stage
A wireframe is the visual representation of our textual “use cases”. A “use case” documents the flow and functionality of key elements on a page. We can use wireframes and “use cases” to internally test how these key components should function.
6. Easier to Rework
Through the use of wireframes our clients can start to see how the site will be laid out. Since they are much faster to produce than design compositions, many more changes and tweaks can be done at this stage without a significant amount of rework.
7. Keeps Projects Within Budget
Wireframes bring together our teams, improve communication with clients and are easily changed and reworked. With all of these important factors projects can run smoothly and more efficiently to save time and costs.
Finally, it is our job to educate clients on how and why we have these processes. That even though this stage can be a bit slow and visually unexciting, it is advantageous to the end result. It is crucial in the beginning to step back from any design aesthetics and plan the best flow, hierarchy and functionality for each project.
Web development blogs and search engine marketing blogs
I’m sure you’re already aware of the benefits of following web development and search engine marketing blogs over reading books on the industries—keeping up on breaking trends that haven’t made it into books yet, getting quick tips, gaining useful information quickly in the little chunks of time when you don’t have enough time to sit down and read a book, etc…. One of the major downsides with blogs is the difficulty of finding useful, accurate information. So I’ve listed the ones that I’ve been following for a while in hopes that you may find a few that you’d find helpful. I started out with a lot more than this, but my google reader was unmanageable. I used google reader’s “trends” feature to weed out the feeds that I read the least or that posted too rarely (or too frequently).
Search Engine Marketing:
- Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim, feed
- Conversation Marketing, feed
- Daily SEO Tip, feed
- Dir Journal, feed
- GrokDotCom,feed
- Matt Cutts, feed
- Search Engine Guide, feed
- Search Engine Journal, feed
- Search Engine Land, feed
- Search Engine Watch, feed
- SEO by the Sea, feed
- SEOmoz, feed
- Techno Marketer, feed
- The Official Google Blog, feed
Web Development
A Client Service Lesson From My Auto Shop
I bought my car from a Chrysler dealership and I have always taken it there for routine maintenance. My wife, on the other hand, takes her car to Joe’s Auto Service in Carmel, IN and is always imporessed with the service and how they treat her. So I decided to start taking my car to Joe’s. Joe’s is higher priced but they understand they are in a fragmented market with loads of competition so to set themselves apart they go above and beyond to treat me well, call me by my first name and recognize my voice on the phone.
So as I think about the Galvin Creative Technologies business strategy I am often confronted with the fact that our rates are higher than others but I validate it with three things – communication, communication, communication. During a project it is imperative to communicate regularly throughout a project but once a project is complete our client services team steps in. Yes, we have a full dedicated client services team which is committed to the ongoing success of our relationship with the client. When you call you will talk to someone who is ready to work with you and our hope is that they treat you as well as Joe’s Auto Service treats my wife and I.
Terre Haute Tribune-Star Honors the New Sisters of Providence Website
Sisters of Providence, located in Terre Haute, IN, gets their website design and developed by Galvin Creative Technologies.
Today I was visiting my in-laws in Terre Haute, IN and had some time to read the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. I was thrilled to see an article about the new Sisters of Providence website that we helped architect and develop. It truly was a pleasure working with the Sisters of Providence and their 13 websites. Galvin Creative Technologies developed a complete content management system which allows the Sisters to maintain every aspect of all their websites. In addition, the site has eCommerce, ability to obtain donations, event publishing and so much more.
You can read the article on the TribStar.com web site.
You can visit the Sisters of Providence site at www.sistersofprovidence.org
The New MyCarbonPledge.com
We recently launched one of our newest projects, MyCarbonPledge.com. My Carbon Pledge is an initiative of the Indianapolis Zoo to inform the public about the deleterious effects of carbon gas emissions on our ecosystems and wildlife habitats. The zoo’s efforts to date have mainly centered on the polar bear. As the projections show, two thirds of their population will be gone by the year 2050 due to the loss of Arctic sea ice. MyCarbonPledge.com is at the heart of this campaign, allowing the community to become actively involved in fighting carbon emissions. My Carbon Pledge’s first launch was on Earth Day 2008 and promoted the switch of incandescent light bulbs to CFL bulbs. This first launch turned out to be quite a success with roughly 55,000 bulbs pledged for a total of 8,250,000 lbs of CO2 emissions saved. The zoo then came to us with a new campaign to continue this cause.
This resulted in the new, redesigned and restructured MyCarbonPledge.com. The goal for this year’s pledge was to get people to unplug their unused appliances, while still honoring last year’s pledge of switching to CFL bulbs. The idea was that even though you are not using the appliance there are still carbon gasses being emitted due to energy consumption while it’s plugged in, something that is known as “phantom power”. It is estimated that this simple step can reduce CO2 emissions by 1% and in turn further help sustain the Arctic sea ice and wildlife.
There were two main goals for the 2009 MyCarbonPledge website redesign: 1) market the new message and 2) redesign and reorganize the site to make it more usable. These goals would utilize web development standards, modern technologies and communication design.
By organizing the content better and streamlining the wireframe we were able to strengthen the overall usability of the site. The previous homepage had too much information and the hierarchy wasn’t clearly identified. The new design utilizes a grid system that clearly defines the different sections and allows the user’s eyes to move down the page with ease. The user can still pledge from the homepage as before, but the new pledge and login overlays allow for a cleaner interface. The idea being that the cleaner the interface, the more impact the call-to-action could ultimately have. The new design gives character to the brand evoking playfulness and personality. We created more contrast between the colors and used a dramatic background to give depth and create an environment for the site.
The different sections of the website were also streamlined. The green articles, resources and other links were not well organized in the sitemap. Therefore, users were not getting the information they needed. Thus more attention was paid to calling out these sections inside the site to help users get more excited about the entire campaign. Lastly, we implemented a social media strategy to help get their message out to the public.
The site launched on Earth Day 2009 and has already received 440+ pledges. This project has not only fashioned a business relationship at the Indianapolis Zoo, but is also something we are proud to be associated with. Pledge what you can, and we hope you enjoy the site.
Date Posted
Mar 08/10
Comments
0